Chapter 1: The Young Thief

  There is no sky or earth, only endless darkness and flames burning recklessly. The flames are eerie and cold, mysterious and terrifying, like the hellfire of Jiuyou that can incinerate everything, and also like the judgment fire of the abyss that can punish all living things.

  In this world filled with dark flames, a faint figure can be seen. It is a young man standing in the void, turning his body and gazing at the terrifying flames around him with a terrified and bewildered expression. Suddenly, he realizes something is wrong, looks down and finds that the flames have somehow started to spread to his own feet. When he squats down to try to extinguish them, it's already too late. The dark flames instantly engulf him, burning wildly.

  "Ah——"

  Chen Luo woke up from a nightmare, scrambled to his feet, and looked around the walls in terror. He stared at the mysterious symbols flashing on the walls, and when he heard the bitter and solemn chanting sound in his ears, he slowly let out a breath. Leaning against the corner, he sat on the ground, tilted his head back, rested for a while, and his pale face gradually recovered.

  After a long time, he opened the collar of his robe and looked at the flame mark on his shoulder. His eyebrows furrowed deeply as he gazed at the black flame mark, which seemed to be alive, just like the eerie and cold darkness in his dreams. However, it looked very beautiful, not like flames, but more like a blooming dark flower.

  This strange mark is what thing, Chen Luo didn't know, only knew that since the appearance of this mark on his body, he would have nightmares every now and then. In the nightmare, he stood in the endless darkness of fire and was burned to ashes. The feeling was painful to the bone marrow. What's even stranger is that every time he had a nightmare, the mark on his body would change. At first, it looked like a spark, more like a budding flower bud. After having nightmares for a whole year, this flower bud has been blooming from the beginning to now.

  Shaking his head, he fastened his robe and let out a sigh, looking somewhat regretful. He muttered to himself, "If only I hadn't touched that damned broken formation array a year ago..." He sighed again.

  To mention him, he is not old, only seventeen years old. At this age, most people should be studying in the academy to become a great wizard who is admired by others. In fact, Chen Luo was indeed so. A year ago, he was still an apprentice of Xiaoluo Tian Academy, and he was also a high-level apprentice who was highly valued. Moreover, he was recognized as a genius by the academy, and the teachers of the academy had high hopes for him to enter the world's top central university to win glory for the academy.

  Everything was going smoothly, and Chen Luo also had confidence in passing the assessment. However, just a year ago, he accidentally discovered a strange and broken formation. His hands itched, wanting to break it and see what secrets were hidden inside.

  Actually, Chen Luo had a secret that he never told outsiders. He was an orphan who followed his master 'Cloud Wandering Child' to learn array techniques from a young age. Over the years, apart from necessary cultivation, most of his time was spent studying array techniques. When he entered Xiaoluo Tian Academy at the age of nine, his attainments in the field of array techniques had already surpassed some famous array masters. In the following years, he became obsessed with deciphering arrays, and the sense of satisfaction he got from deciphering an array made him extremely happy. The secrets hidden inside the deciphered array also greatly satisfied his curiosity. Therefore, he became a professional array thief.

  In just a few short years, the formations that he had deciphered and stolen numbered in the hundreds. Whether it was the "Myriad Arrows Formation", as long as he wanted to, he could prevent even one arrow from being shot out; whether it was the "Transmission Formation", as long as he wanted to, he could transmit himself to any place; whether it was the "Guardian Formation", as long as he wanted to, he could freely enter and exit at will.

  He became notorious as the greatest thief of arrays, becoming the number one wanted man for all universities, major guard teams and major glory teams, and even ranked ninth on the world's most wanted list, leaving many dark sorcerers far behind.

  No matter whether he was a genius senior apprentice of the Xiao Luo Tian Academy or a world-class array thief infamous for walking on the dark edge, Chen Luo had always been hiding very well. All this was originally normal until one year ago when he discovered that strange broken array. When he set out to decipher it, he only felt his whole body start to ache intensely as if being burned by flames, and then he fainted.

  When his consciousness gradually cleared, he found himself imprisoned in the Tower of Punishment, a place where evil sorcerers who had been tainted by darkness were held. However, Chen Luo had never been tainted by darkness, yet he was being held here. At first, he was very puzzled, but later on, he gradually came to understand that after he had fainted, he was discovered by someone from the Adventurer's Glory Team. The person from the Glory Team found him abnormal and suspected that he had been tainted by darkness, so they handed him over to the local Guardian of Light team. Then, the Guardian of Light team announced his crimes: being tainted by darkness, violating the laws of light, abolishing his cultivation, and imprisoning him for one year and five months.

  Chen Luo dared to affirm that he had never been tainted by darkness, but why did the Guardians of Light think he was tainted by darkness?

  This question had him thinking for a long time, and the final result he came up with was that the strange formation might have contained dark energy, which he had inadvertently absorbed when he broke through it, leading to his misfortune of being locked up here.

  Let me calculate the days, I have been locked up here for almost a year, right? Due to this damn place being dark and gloomy all day, it's really unclear how many days I've been locked up.

  *sigh*...

  He let out a sigh, and at this moment Chen Luo would always think of his late master who had passed away three years ago. The biggest regret in his life was that he could not enter the world's top Central Academy, also known as the number one in the world, and then open the treasure trove of the Central Academy. His master said that the treasure trove hid the greatest secret of this world, but unfortunately, his master did not fulfill his wish until his death.

  Chen had promised his master before he passed away that he would definitely enter the Central Academy, open the Central Treasury, and then bring the world's greatest secret to his master's tombstone to read it out loud personally.

  Originally everything was going according to plan before, first take the entrance exam for Central Academy, then think of a way to open the treasure vault.

  And he also had the confidence to pass the assessment of the Central Academy at the age of eighteen, but unfortunately, this incident occurred, and what made him even more disheartened was that his hard-earned spiritual power was abolished by the people of the Radiant Guardian Corps.

  To participate in the assessment of the Central Academy, two conditions must be met. First, one must not have reached the age of 18. Second, their cultivation must have reached the second boundary and opened up their own spiritual sea.

  Chen Luo is seventeen years old this year. With his cultivation being abolished, he only has one year left. To think that within a year, he can go from zero to the second realm, it's simply more difficult than ascending to heaven.

  The only fortunate thing is that although the spiritual power was abolished, the mental power still exists. As long as he has mental power, he can set up an array. Alas, for some reason, since a strange black flame mark appeared on his back, his mental power has also become very weak and cannot be concentrated at all. If not, with his attainments in the field of arrays, it would not be difficult to get out of here.

  My spiritual power is crippled, and my mental state is in a weakened condition, unable to set up formations. And then there's the eerie dark flame mark that causes terrifying nightmares... it's really a mess...

  "Hey! Brother Chen, I have some good news to tell you, want to hear it?"

  At the sound of footsteps, Chen Luo, who was sitting in the corner with his back against the wall, slightly raised his head. The man standing outside the cell was a prison guard named Wang Dali, whom Chen Luo knew to be a decent person who had taken good care of him during his year-long imprisonment.

  "Big Brother Wang, what good news could I possibly have in a place like this?" Chen Luo looked listless and somewhat depressed.

  "Look at you, you've become like this after just a year and a half of being locked up. If you were locked up for 180 years, wouldn't you go crazy?!" Wang Dalie gave him a disdainful glance. Seeing Chen Luo's helpless headshake, he hastily said: "Alright, I'll tell you directly, you only have three more days before you can get out."

  "Going out?" Chen Luo's expression was stunned, as if he hadn't reacted for a moment. Then, he blinked his eyes, looking somewhat unbelievable, and asked suspiciously: "You're not joking with me, are you?"

  "Go, go, go! You've been here for over a year and should be clear about this. The prison guards never joke about this. I deliberately sneaked a peek at your file today and it's crystal clear: you can leave in three days."

  Chen Lu closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and smiled as she replied with a soft "okay".

  "I said, Brother Chen, you're not being held captive here, are you? Why don't you look excited at all?"

  Chen Luo simply shook his head, with a faint smile. He wasn't unexcited, he just didn't show it. After being locked up for nearly a year and a half, he had thought about many things, and both his mood and temperament had undergone tremendous changes.

  Wang Dali originally wanted to say something, but at this time another prison guard came, looking at his unhappy and sulky expression, jokingly said: "Old Zhang, what's wrong with you? Did your wife run away?"

  "Your wife just ran away!" Old Zhang responded irritably.

  "Your wife hasn't run away, why are you looking so gloomy?"

  "Alas, never mind, I might be transferred into the Radiant Guard after a while."

  "It's not easy to get transferred here, how come you got transferred back?"

  "The Dawn Guard is currently short-handed and I am a Dawn Guard, so I was called back."

  "Is the Vanguard of Light short-handed? What are they going to do?"

  The old prison guard named Zhang sighed and said, "They transferred me here to look for someone's trail."

  "Who are you looking for? Do you still need so many people?"

  "How many? You call this many? To be honest with you, it's not just our domain's Luminous Guardians who are searching. The entire Xuan Huang world's 96 domains' Luminous Guardian teams have all received the order from the Temple of Light to go all out and track down that person's trail."

  "An order from the Temple of Light? And mobilizing all domains' Guardians of Light? Good heavens, who are you trying to track down, has a thousand-year-old witch appeared?"

  "Hmph! That guy may not be a thousand-year-old witch, but his threat to the world is no less than that of a thousand-year-old witch!" Old Zhang spat, opened the gourd at his waist, tilted his head and took a swig of wine, saying: "You should have heard of Tongtian Laozu?"

  "Primordial Lord of the Heavens?"

  At the mention of this name, Wang Dali couldn't help but take a cold breath and ask with his head tilted: "Is that the guy ranked ninth on the world's wanted list?"

  "Who else could it be? This guy went on a rampage a few years ago, messing up the arrays of various domains around the world. It's unknown why, but strangely enough, he hasn't shown his face for over a year now. The Temple of Light thinks he might be plotting something, so they issued an order to have the Light Guardians of each domain inspect all important arrays."

  The name Tongtian Laozu is like a nightmare to the people of the Xuanhuang world. No one knows who he is or where he comes from, only that five years ago, this person suddenly appeared out of nowhere and destroyed the guardian array of the Moro City Lord's Manor, sneaking in and opening its treasure vault.

  In the same year, in June, he successively broke through the defensive formations of two families and three Glory Teams in Moro City. In August, he even broke through the defensive formation of the central array tower in Moro City.

  In the same November, all thirty-two cities in the Sea Blue Domain that had any reputation for their arrays were visited by him. Each of the major families said they wanted to capture him, but he dismantled the spiritual plant array and caused them heavy losses. The Luminous Guards from each city tried to catch him, but he set up a strange array that teleported those Luminous Guards to desolate areas. Thirty-two array towers put out a warrant for his arrest, but he destroyed the central array hub inside the towers, causing many related arrays to fall into paralysis.

  In just one year, this person has turned the entire Azure Domain into a mess. From the Domain Master's Manor to the Array Towers, and from the Spiritual Fields to the Spiritual Gardens, nothing has been left unscathed by his destruction. He has even messed up the transmission arrays, causing spiritual energy to leak out everywhere.

  In the second year, he successively sneaked into many central array towers around the world, opened their book pavilions, and freely browsed through various precious array method notes. Within a year, more than 400 towers were visited by him.

  In the third year, he sneaked into the famous Hundred Beast Spiritual Garden, startling the spiritual beasts inside, snuck into the Treasure Spiritual Field, stole and ate rare medicines, snuck into the Cloud Sea Treasury, absorbed precious cloud spiritual energy. This year, a total of forty-six spiritual fields and gardens were visited.

  In the fourth year, this person became even more frantic and actually caught the attention of the Small Spiritual Realm. Two out of the world's ten small spiritual realms were destroyed.

  In the fifth year, he became even more unscrupulous and brazenly challenged the major law enforcement centers around the world. Many of the Luminous Guardians were teleported to the Evil Forest, some were sent to the terrifying ancient ruins, some were left disoriented, and others still remain missing to this day. He threatened the Guardian Teams of various domains, threatened the top-tier Glory Teams, and even threatened the world's number one Central Academy. Moreover, he also threatened the revered Luminous Temple, which inspires awe in all who behold it. Furthermore, he made a ruthless declaration that if the Luminous Temple continued to hunt him down, he would teleport all of the temple's Luminous Mages to the most terrifying depths.

  These five years were the darkest five years in the world of Xuan Huang, also the most frightening and fearful five years for all major arrays and business firms, as well as the busiest and most suffocating five years for the Temple of Light.

  In just five short years, he rose to ninth place on the world's most wanted list, earning him the nickname "Tongtian Laozu".

  "Think about it, this Tongtian Laozu guy has done some crazy things in the past five years." Wang Dali wasn't hearing about Tongtian Laozu's deeds for the first time, but every time he did, he couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and even admiration. He said: "This crazy guy messed up the world in five years and then hid? No, that shouldn't be it. I think Guangming Temple's guess is correct, that crazy guy must be secretly planning something big."

  In prison, Chen Luo's expression was quite complex, seemingly helpless and wanting to laugh at the same time. In his heart, he thought: "Damn it, I've been locked up here for over a year, my cultivation has been ruined, not to mention that my spiritual energy is now inexplicably weak. What kind of secret plot can I even hatch?"